Month: January 2022

MLK and the Theology of Hope

Say not the days are evil – Who’s to blame?

Or fold your hands, as in defeat – O shame!

Stand up, speak out, and bravely,

In God’s name…

It matters not how deep entrenched the wrong,

How hard the battle goes, the day how long,

Faint not.  Fight on!

Maltbie D. Babcock

This past week we marked the day that honors the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.  No doubt you heard and read many eloquent testimonies to his life, legacy, and patient endurance in the face of evil.  Among the words I read were these from the editorial board of The Washington Post:

‘King preached both urgency and patience – nonviolent perseverance in the face of fire hoses, dogs, beatings, lynchings.  Every second of marginalization [for African Americans] was intolerable.  Yet it took a decade after King’s 1955 Montgomery, Ala., bus boycott for Congress to approve the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1955.  Enslaved Americans had been freed a century before.  King did not lose hope.  He kept working.’ 

King understood that it takes patience to overcome evil.  For King evil was not theoretical.  He knew that evil is real and difficult to root out.  In the face of all that he and his partners endured in the struggle against evil, the obstacles that stood in the way of progress, and the slow pace of reform, it would have been easy for him to have lost hope and given up.  Truth be told, there were moments when he was tempted to do so.  But he never did.  He kept hoping.  He kept working. 

In this, I submit, King expressed the Theology of Hope. 

The Theology of Hope always endures in the face of evil.  It knows that in a fallen, broken world, evil exists, and that from time to time, gains the power to, for a time, have its way.  But it does not let that knowledge quench the hope for better days.  It believes.  It perseveres.  It works for better days even when their arrival is delayed.  For it knows, as King so famously said (although it was actually the Reverend Theodore Parker who said it first) that ‘the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.’ 

We need King’s perspective in the times we face.  As a new year breaks upon the shore of our lives, there is much that might cause us to despair.  America is becoming balkanized.  People believe the most bizarre conspiracy theories.  A slow-moving coup continues apace.  The days when people pulled together and sacrificed for the sake of the general welfare seem to be gone forever; individualism, at least in some quarters, has all but triumphed over communitarian love for neighbor.  Truth is both relative and disposable.  Democratic principle, the foundation on which our society has been built, however imperfectly, is under assault and crumbling.  What happens when the very foundations of a society are broken?  When everyone does what is right in their own eyes?  When truth is lost, and people are divided?  History tells the answer: evil rises and takes over.  And yes, my friends, we are witnessing evil rising to do so before our very eyes.

I suppose some at this point may be thinking, ‘Gee, Brent doesn’t sound very hopeful.  Where is his Theology of Hope?’  Please bear with me.  I confess that I am not extremely hopeful about stopping evil in its tracks at the moment.  Evil exists in our society (it always does in any society) and all signs point to its rising.  We may well be entering a period of time unlike any experienced in most of our lifetimes, a period when evil men and women take the reins of power and bring down the veil of darkness.  Just how dark things may get I cannot say.  But darkness does indeed seem to be on the horizon.  To say so is not to express the loss of hope.  Rather, it is to acknowledge current trends. It is to acknowledge the same reality that King knew, that from time to time, and for a time, evil, which always exists, gains in power.   

Hope, you see, is not the fool’s hope that denies the existence of evil, but the solid ground on which we stand even as it rises.  Hope abounds, even when evil seems to gain the upper hand.  I for one, have not lost hope in these darkening days.  For I know what King knew.  Evil exists, and evil may prosper for a time.  This is the reality of life in a fallen world.  But the moral arc of the universe bends toward justice.  It bends toward love.  And if that is true, and it is, then evil will not endure.  It may have its hour, but in the end, it will be cast down.  Love and justice will have the final say. 

Christian faith proclaims this.  It proclaims the Theology of Hope.  As a Christian, I believe in the light that shines in the darkness that shall never be overcome.  I believe in the God who raises the dead, who can turn the darkest days to the bright morning light.  I believe in the day of evil’s destruction and the restoration of all things.  I believe in the sun of righteousness that rises with healing in its wings.  And I believe that, until that day comes, while the darkness may come from time to time, the darkness will last only a night; everlasting joy will come with the morning. 

So what do we do if we live to see days when darkness falls in deepening shades? 

There is a great scene in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, in which Frodo Baggins, having found himself torn from his beloved and peaceful Shire and cast into the center of a cosmic battle between good and evil, laments that such circumstances have come during his lifetime.  ‘I wish the ring had never come to me,’ he tells Gandalf, ‘I wish none of this had ever happened.’  Gandalf’s reply is remarkable: ‘So do all who live to see such times.  But that is not for them to decide.  All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.’  And then he adds these encouraging words: ‘There are other forces at work in this world beside the will of evil…and that is an encouraging thought.’

Indeed it is.  This is why we can have faith that the moral arc of the universe bends toward justice and love.  Because there is One who does the bending: the God of love and justice. 

And so, when evil days come, we cling to hope.  We persevere.  We endure.  And we work.  We speak truth.  We strive for justice.  We live in such a way that the world sees an alternative to the madness taking place around us.  We show the world a different future as we serve as signposts pointing to better days.  As Gandalf suggested, we do the best with the time given to us.  And we believe that God will use that time, and our efforts, to bring about better days. 

That is what Christian faith does when darkness falls.  It holds, as King did, to the Theology of Hope. 

And waits for morning.

Under Christ’s Mercy,

Brent

The Outsiders

‘In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, asking, ‘Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews?’  For we observed his star at its rising and have come to pay him homage.’  When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all of Jerusalem with him; and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born.  They told him, ‘In Bethlehem of Judea…’ (NRSV).

In his Meditations, Soren Kierkegaard comments on the remarkable fact that the chief priests and scribes of Israel, the very men who knew the prophecies of the Messiah so well they could tell the place of his birth, were not stirred to action at the news of the wise men.  Here were the very people who had, supposedly, longed for and preached about his coming, and yet, when he came, they remained in place; only the magi went forward to the town of Bethlehem to behold the long-awaited newborn King.  Kierkegaard writes:

‘What vexation it must have been for the kings, that the scribes who gave them the news they wanted remained quiet in Jerusalem!  ‘We are being mocked,’ the kings might have thought.  For indeed what an atrocious self-contradiction that the scribes should have the knowledge and yet remain still.’

It isn’t hard to see why they remained still.  These men were connected to Herod.  Perhaps they did not approve of all Herod stood for, indeed it would be hard to believe otherwise, given Herod’s ghastly reputation, but they certainly liked the perks of being connected.  They were, in essence, court prophets with easy access to the halls of power.  They treasured the honor and authority of their position, the fine and flowing robes that spoke to their prestige, the sumptuous feasts at the table of the king, and their places among the councils of the mighty.  Had they left with the wise men, all of that would have been lost.  Who would leave such a life to find the one born in the impoverished town of Bethlehem?  And so rather than go to see the one they supposedly believed in, they remained in Herod’s court, savoring their insider status and the glories of a lesser kingdom.

Insiders are like that.  Men and women of influence, those who enjoy a certain level of what the world calls success, can become so enthralled by the perks of their position and their political, social, or economic masters that they lose sight of what truly matters.  Sadly, we live in a world where most want to be insiders.  To have access to the halls of power, to possess honor and authority, to wear fine and flowing robes, to feast sumptuously at the tables of influence, to find places in the councils of the mighty, that is what life is all about.  Who would trade such a life to follow the one found in impoverished places like Bethlehem?  And so as it was in the case of the magi, it remains today.  Most, even in the church it seems, would prefer to remain in the halls of Herod than risk their insider status in pursuit of one whose kingdom is of a different nature. 

For Jesus’ Kingdom, of course, is of different nature.  It does not occupy the halls of power.  It does not possess the kind of honor and authority coveted by the insiders of the world.  It involves no flowing robes, no sumptuous feasts around tables of influence, no place in the councils of those whom the world calls mighty.  Indeed, the only time Jesus spent time in those halls and councils was when he was on trial for his life. 

Which is why Jesus’ Kingdom is usually filled with outsiders. 

Just take a look at the cross.  As Jesus died on Calvary, he didn’t have much of a following.  Most had abandoned him.  Only one of the twelve, John, was present, along with several women, one of whom was his mother.  There was a criminal dying on a cross to his side, and a Centurion, who, while he may have begun the day as an insider, ended it by treasonously declaring Jesus to be God’s Son.[1]   None of these would find access to the halls of power.  None would ever find positions of honor and authority in the eyes of the world.  None would wear fine flowing robes that enhanced their prestige in the eyes of the people.  None would feast sumptuously at the tables of a king or take places in the councils of the mighty.  Their positions at the foot of the cross marked them out, not only as insignificant men and women in the eyes of the insiders, but as men and women willing to risk their reputations and lives for the sake of an upside-down kingdom.  For them, the glories of the world were nothing when compared to the infinite value of simply being near Jesus. 

Such is the way of things.  The insiders, those with much to lose, are the most reluctant, the most hesitant, to move in the direction of Jesus.  But the outsiders, those with little or nothing to lose, or at least those who are willing to give up what they do have for the sake of something better, something real, those who do not love their lives so much that they are afraid to lose them, will always be found leaving the places of honor for a place at Jesus’ side.  They will always be found, not in the halls of power, but in impoverished towns, beside lowly mangers, and at the foot of the cross, willing to follow the one who led them there. 

This year, may we be found among them.   

Under Christ’s Mercy,

Brent

[1] Son of God was a title belonging to the Roman Emperor.